FIC: "A son's happiness," 1/1 (Alan, Charlie/Colby, Don, PG-13)
Hello, everyone. This is a little fic related to The Connections Series. Enjoy.
I'm pretty busy again with my new exams, but I'm doing my best to keep updating this journal as much as I can. :)
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A son's happiness
A fic by paranoid_woman
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Title: A son’s happiness
Characters: Alan, mention of Charlie/Colby, Don
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Episode 4.11 “Breaking point.”
Warnings: None.
Summary: This is the thought process that led Alan to accept that Charlie was gay and that he had chosen Colby to share his life with.
A/N: This takes place right after chapter 17, "The name" of the Connections Series.
Disclaimer: I do not own Numb3rs or anything related to it, except my OMCs.
Beta: The lovely toomuchfandom
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Watching what was left of his house, Alan patted Don’s shoulder and passed over the leftovers of the pizza he and his family had been eating for lunch. He sat on a chair, still holding the one picture of Margaret he wanted to restore.
He wondered if, wherever she was now, she was happy for Charlie and the fact that he seemed to have found a special someone to share his life with.
But every time Alan thought about Charlie having a normal life, he couldn’t avoid remembering his son’s childhood. He had this image inside his head, the image of Charlie seated at the table writing equations when he was a kid.
There was the memory of his son’s loneliness and sadness. His frustration for not being able to discuss his ideas with someone who could stand up to him, critique Charlie properly and make suggestions to improve the equations.
Because even if Charlie had kept those feelings to himself, Alan had been able to see them in his eyes, in the long hours Charlie used to spend reading math books in the garage, all alone. He had seen it in the lack of phone calls and visits he had gotten from people his age. He had seen it in the way Charlie always had avoided talking about the idea of hanging out with his school partners.
Thankfully, Princeton had opened its doors for Charlie to get into a whole different world. Even if he had been a very young person to get into college, Charlie had seemed to find there everything he had wished for. People who could understand him, people who didn’t consider him to be a freak.
But now, more than fifteen years later, Alan thought that Charlie still had a lot to learn about life.
Even if Amita was a very special person, and Alan loved her as a daughter, he had the feeling that she wasn’t the best woman for his son. It was true that she and Charlie got along very well when it came to work and math, but there was definitely something missing. They were partners who were a great team, and who could understand each other in several degrees, but it always seemed that the spark of love wasn’t really there.
It was nothing like what Alan and Margaret had had, there was no comparison there. Alan knew exactly what true love was, and he didn’t see it in his son’s eyes every time he looked at Amita.
It was obvious for Alan that Charlie needed to find someone who could make his mind spin and who took him out of his own world. Since Amita belonged into that world, it was impossible that she was the one who could wake up Charlie’s heart. And as time passed by, Alan really worried about his son’s getting into a relationship that didn’t really mean the world to him.
However, it had shocked Alan that Charlie and Amita had broken up at the FBI. That wasn’t the best place to get into a fight, especially after Amita had been rescued thanks to Charlie. Alan had wondered for several days what had been the reason that had separated the couple.
Now he had his answer. The reason had been Colby. Colby, one of Don’s agents. The one man who had stood by Charlie’s side when he was trying to break the code Amita had left written in one of the walls of a motel. Colby, the one who had unblocked the mathematician’s mind and had made him leave the traumatic experience of a car chase behind.
Of course Alan had noticed that Charlie and Colby had become closer. To some extent, he had been glad that his son had finally made a normal true friend. Someone who wasn’t a brilliant scientific mind, someone who was smart in his own way, and who also had a big heart.
Alan had wished that Charlie could find a woman with the same description. But he knew that it would be hard, considering that he seemed to have pretty much gotten used to being with Amita, just because she was nice to him.
Even if Alan always made jokes about him wanting to get grandchildren, it was just that, only a joke. Of course he wanted to have small children running through the every room of the house again, like Charlie and Don had done when they were very young. Yet, Alan knew that that was his dream, and that he would never make his sons embrace a desire that didn’t really belong to them.
Even if that desire was that Charlie could find love in a woman.
A new, deep friendship. A break-up. A dinner. A public fight. And finally, a desperate Charlie grabbing his brother’s gun to save both his ex-girlfriend and his new friend.
Alan had seen in Charlie’s eyes that he had done it because he loved Colby and because he felt guilty for leaving Amita. But in the bottom of his heart, Charlie’s father was definitely glad that his son had ended a relationship that wasn’t real. Now, Colby had become the most important person in Charlie’s life, and Amita was never going to be able to gain that place back again.
Now that the afternoon was just beginning, Alan thought about all of this and took a deep breath. Don had had a fight with Charlie half an hour ago, and now he was at the front door of the house, probably thinking about how to fix things between him and his brother.
Don seemed to need to deal with the news of Charlie being gay, just like Alan and everybody else had to do it. But standing there, thinking deeply about all that had happened, Don looked like the most loving brother in the whole world. Alan knew that he would accept anything that Charlie decided to do, simply because he loved him. And that made Alan proud of the sons he had raised, supported by the hard work of his beloved wife.
Looking at the picture of Margaret that he had in his hands, Alan caressed her face slightly. He knew that she would be happy with Charlie’s decision.
And because of that, Alan also knew that everything would be all right. The reason for Charlie’s strange behavior had been discovered, and even if it had been unexpected, as a father he wanted him to be happy, no matter what it took.
Alan put on his glasses and grabbed a part of a newspaper that was next to him. Maybe Colby was the one person Charlie needed to be happy with. Maybe Colby was the one who could bring some true joy into Charlie’s life.
Life had given Alan lessons that he was very careful to follow. For example, that a father who loves his sons has to step out of the way sometimes and let them be free. So as long as Charlie was doing his best to be happy, Alan was ok with anything he decided to do.
And thus there was no reason to get worried. The secret was out, and only time was needed to restore every single connection that had been broken lately. Don would talk to his brother and ask him for forgiveness, and Alan would give him his support too.
But what was most important, Charlie would talk to Colby, and hopefully they could fix things between them.
Charlie would finally get to be with someone he truly loved.